What Makes 2 KG. 8:9ff a True Parallel of 2 KG. 9:6FF?

Till:
Before we look at anything else LJ said, I'll ask readers to note that he is going to claim that a commission delivered to Elijah on Mount Horeb was a "true parallel." We'll see that it wasn't, but first let's look at LJ's argument.

LJ:
The prophecies delivered to Hazael and Jehu both ultimately stem from the divine commission received by the prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb (1 Kg. 19:15-18), quoted below with some words emphasised:

And the Lord said unto him [Elijah], Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be King over Syria: and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.

And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left me....

he reader will note from the above that both Hazael and Jehu were to be anointed specifically for the purpose of being instruments of divine judgement (we will not discuss here what is meant by the words "shall Elisha slay").

Till:
Anyone should immediately see that 1 Kings 19:15ff cannot be a parallel to 2 Kings 9:6ff, because (1) the former was spoken by Yahweh to a prophet who was commanded to go perform anointings of third-party individuals, (2) 2 Kings 9:6ff was spoken by a prophet to the subject [Jehu] of the anointing, (3) 1 Kings 19:15ff. lacks at least two elements that are in the Jehu examples, and (4) even if 1 Kings 19:15ff is combined with 2 Kings 8:10ff, it still lacks all of the elements in the Jehu example and contains an element of grief and disapproval that is not in the Jehu example.

Let's analyze first the steps in the Jehu example as they are presented in 2 Kings 9, and then I will propose a hypothetical rewriting of 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 8:10 to make the composite a parallel to the Jehu example.

The Jehu example: (Step1, 2 Kings 9:1-3) Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, "Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, 'Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and flee; do not linger." (Step 2, verse 4-5): So the young man, the young prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. He arrived while the commanders of the army were in council, and he announced, "I have a message for you, commander." "For which one of us?" asked Jehu. "For you, commander." (Step 3, verse 6): So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel. (Step 4, verse 7): You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh.

Hence, we see that there were four distinct steps in the Jehu example: (1) A first party [Elisha] issued to a second party [another prophet] a command to go to Ramoth-gilead to anoint a third party [Jehu.] (2) The second party [young prophet] went to Ramoth-gilead and found the third party [Jehu]. (3) The second party anointed the third party. (4) The second party told the third party that he would strike down the house of Ahab.

So that I wouldn't beg the question of whether step 4 was the issuance of a command or a prophecy, I avoided the use of either word, but when this four-step example is compared to the scene in 1 Kings 19, we can easily see that it was not parallel to the Jehu example for the following reasons: (1) Only two parties, Yahweh and Elijah, are in the scene in 1 Kings. (2) The third parties, Hazael and Jehu, never appear; they are only referred to. (3) The command to anoint Hazael and Jehu was never executed by Elijah. (4) The statement of what Hazael and Jehu would do after their anointings was never spoken to either party.

These are significant differences that would not allow any reasonable person to say that the scene in 1 Kings 19 was a "true parallel" to the Jehu example. In order for the scene in 1 Kings to be a true parallel, it would have to be combined with 2 Kings 8:10ff and written like this.

Then Yahweh said to Elijah, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Syria." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 1 in the Jehu example.] "So Elijah went to the wilderness of Damascus, and when he arrived, he found Hazael the servant of Benhadad and said, "I have a message for you." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 2 in the Jehu example.] "And Hazael arose and went into the house, and Elisha poured oil on his head and said to him, 'Thus says Yahweh, I anoint you king over the people of Syrian." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 3 in the Jehu example.] "And you shall slay everyone who escapes from the sword of Jehu. You will kill all the young men of Israel with the sword and will dash to pieces their little ones, and rip open their women with child." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 4 in the Jehu example.}

If this had been the scenario with Hazael, then without a doubt Hazael would have thought that the prophet Elisha was delivering to him a command from the god of Israel to kill everyone who escaped Jehu's sword, to kill all the young men of Israel with the word, to dash to pieces their little ones, and to rip open their pregnant women. The Hazael example not only lacks steps three and four, but it contains an element not in the Jehu example. That extra element is Elisha's expression of dismay and disapproval over the atrocities he predicted that Hazael would do after he became king. The "son of the prophet" who went to Jehu and anointed him king expressed no comparable dismay or disapproval.

Without all of the steps that are in the Jehu example and with the inclusion of the element of dismay and disapproval in the Hazael example, LJ is left without even a remote parallel, much less a "true parallel," in Elisha's visit to Hazael. He has only a fanciful yarn where a god allegedly spoke to Elijah and gave him a commission that Elijah never executed (or at least no record of it was ever made).

I will have more to say about this passage--in fact, I was the one who introduced it earlier--but I'll conclude my comments at this point by noting that this was a "commission" given to Elijah this well before his death. The commission was given to Elijah not to Elisha, and the Old Testament record makes no claim that Elijah ever anointed Hazael king over Syria or Jehu king over Israel. The Old Testament doesn't even claim that Elisha ever anointed Hazael king of Syria, so LJ sees a "true parallel" to 2 Kings 9:6ff in a passage that issued to an entirely different prophet a commission that was never executed by either the prophet or his successor.

That's a curious way of finding "true parallels."

LJ:
FT's position is that the anointing of Jehu followed by the statement "I have anointed thee king..." was meant to convey to Jehu that Yahweh had chosen him for the purpose of destroying the house of Ahab as stated in the following verses. But the prophecy to Hazael is not a parallel "because it lacked the all-important element of a statement from the prophet Elisha that Yahweh had selected Hazael to be anointed king over Syria for the purpose of doing the atrocities that Elisha predicted Hazael would commit against Israel" (1st para. of Part 2 of FT's replies).

Then we have to ask FT, What was then the purpose of the prophet Elisha delivering a prophecy to Hazael in Damascus? Surely Elisha was not on vacation in Damascus and just happened to meet Hazael when Benhadad, the ailing Syrian king, sent Hazael to consult Elisha regarding his illness?

Till:
What was Elisha doing in Damascus? The text doesn't say, so if Elisha was an actual historical person who really made a trip to Damascus, we can only surmise what his reasons were. The text of 2 Kings, as it now exists, gives information on which an educated guess can be made. At that time, Syria was waging war against Israel (2 Kings 6:8). Because of typically ancient superstitions, the king of Syria after a battle he had lost thought that the defeat had come as a result of the prophet Elisha's telling the king of Israel what words Benhadad (the Syrian king) was speaking even in the privacy of his bedroom (vs:11-13). When Benhadad learned that Elisha was in the town of Dothan, he sent an army there to surround it (v:14). A fanciful yarn followed about Elisha's blinding the Syrian hosts and leading them to Samaria, where he restored their vision but wouldn't allow the king of Israel to kill them. This alleged event caused Benhadad to gather his army together and go besiege Samaria. This caused a famine in Samaria so great that people were allegedly eating their own babies (vs:25-31). Isn't biblical history uplifting to read?

Jehoram, the king of Israel, blamed Elisha for the woes of the country and sent men to kill him, but Elisha assuaged the king by assuring him that the famine would end the next day. To make a long story short, the Syrians were gone the next day, because Yahweh had caused them to hear the sounds of horses and chariots, so they had fled in the night thinking that the Israelites had hired the Hittites and Egyptians to come to their aid (7:1-7). The people then went out into the abandoned camp of the Syrians to gather what they had left behind, and enough was found to end the famine.

After then correcting an injustice that had been done to the Shunammite woman whose son Elisha had raised from the dead in chapter 4, Elisha went up to Syria to see the king, who sent his servant Hazael out to meet the prophet with gifts. Why was Elisha there? I too doubt that he was just vacationing. In view of all the hostilities between Syrian and Israel just described, if any trip like this was actually made by Elisha, it could have been political in purpose. This was an era when kings and leaders put great stock in the rantings of "prophets." We have just noted, for example, that the king of Syrian was so superstitious that he sent an army to try to capture or kill an Israelite prophet who he thought could hear what he was saying in privacy. In 1 Kings 22, there is a tale of Ahab's efforts to persuade Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, to form an alliance to attack Ramoth-gilead. Ahab had brought in 400 prophets to put on a show for Jehoshaphat and assure him that the alliance would be successful. In 2 Kings 3, Elisha was called in to give his prophetic opinion to Jehoram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah about their planned attack on Moab. King David had his own seer, Gad, and respected the condemnation of the prophet Nathan so much that he immediately repented of his sin with Bathsheba upon hearing Nathan's denunciation. Undoubtedly, highly respected prophets--and if there is even a semblance of historical accuracy to 2 Kings, Elisha was highly respected--knew that their words could influence national politics, so Elisha's trip to Damascus during a time of hostilities between Israel and Syrian could have been prompted by political motives.

In the absence of a record of why Elisha went to Damascus, the best we can do is surmise the reason for the trip. I summarized the main events in the Syrian/Israelite hostilities at this time in order to emphasize the esteem in which Elisha was held by both sides. Benhadad, the Syrian king, thought that Elisha was able to know what he was speaking even in the privacy of his bedroom, and Hazael, being a servant of Benhadad, would have known about the respect that the Syrian king had for Elisha, who, as noted above, was feared even by the king of Israel, who had wanted to kill him but wasn't able to because of an amazing prediction that Elisha had made about the end of the famine. So how could a man with this kind of influence have helped his people escape a threat from the Syrian king Benhadad? What if he went to Damascus and told Hazael that Yahweh had revealed to him that Hazael would become king of Syria? Such a prediction, coming from someone who was thought to be a prophet, could have spurred Hazael to seize power. In other words, Elisha could have realized that a "prophecy" from him spoken to the right person could bring about a coup d'etat. Although no details of it are given, 2 Kings 8:15 states that this is exactly what happened. Elisha told Hazael that he would become king of Syrian. Benhadad then died, and "Hazael reigned in his stead." Elisha could have easily brought about a change of power in Syrian by just uttering a "prophecy."

LJ asked, so I have given him a very reasonable answer. I am not claiming that this was actually the reason why Elisha went to Damascus, but in the absence of a record of that reason, this is an explanation that is certainly consistent with the times when a "prophet" had the power to influence political events by simply claiming that such and such was going to happen. In such an era, an influential prophet who wanted X to happen could cause X to happen by just saying that it was going to happen. Then someone who thought that the prophet had divine insights would act to make it happen.

Why not?

The reason for Elisha's trip to Syria is unknown, but one thing is sure: the Old Testament account of Elisha's meeting with Hazael didn't mention any anointing ceremony in which Elisha told Hazael that Yahweh had chosen him to be king. That within itself keeps this scene from being a "true parallel" to the prophet's anointing of Jehu in chapter 9, so even if LJ pieces together 1 Kings 19:15ff and 2 Kings 8:9ff (two events widely separated in time), he cannot get a "true parallel to the three-party, four-step example in 2 Kings 9:1-10, where Jehu was anointed king.

LJ:
What was in Elisha's mind that he went all the way to Damascus, a pagan city which an Israelite would have avoided if he could help it. Clearly, Elisha was there to carry out the first of the three commands of the "still small voice" that Elijah heard on Mount Horeb (1 Kg. 19:15-17).

Till:
Clearly? That command was issued to Elijah.

1 Kings 19:15 Then Yahweh said to him [Elijah, not Elisha], "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.

Elijah never carried out this command, so how could it be "clear" that Elisha went to Damascus to carry out a command given to someone else? Elijah was told not just to anoint Hazael but to do it on his return from Mount Horeb.

This was never done, and the "true parallel" that LJ thinks he has found didn't even have Elisha anointing Hazael.

As I continue my point-by-point reply, I would like to ask LJ to reciprocate and answer my rebuttals instead of skipping them as he has been doing.

LJ [continuing his efforts to find a "true parallel" in the Hazael example]:

As a matter of fact, as a believer in the authenticity of biblical prophecy, I believe that Elisha personally went to Damascus knowing through prophetic foresight that the ailing king, having learnt of Elisha's presence in the city, would send Hazael, his right hand man, to consult Elisha and thereby have an opportunity to meet Hazael and deliver the prophecy.

Till:
As a believer in the authenticity of biblical prophecy (but not necessarily a believer in the accuracy of biblical history, of course) LJ may well believe this, but his beliefs alone don't make anything true. Let me propose another scenario to him, which is far more credible than his belief that people in that time (like Elisha) had "prophetic insight." The stories of Jehu and Hazael are very likely after-the-fact accounts intentionally written to leave the impression with readers that Hazael and Jehu had fulfilled prophecies. Obviously, 2 Kings wasn't written until after Jehu's massacre at Jezreel; otherwise, the story could not have been included in this book, so there can be no question that the author(s) was (were) writing after the fact. The author(s) living at a time when people generally thought that gods were directly involved in practically every human activity wrote these books to reflect that opinion. Why was such a despicable king as Ahab allowed to continue his reign after committing the atrocities ascribed to him? The answer is found in the way the author told the tale of Elijah's condemnation of Ahab in the matter of Naboth's vineyard. After Jezebel had conspired to have Naboth killed so that Ahab could possess the vineyard, Elijah was "sent" to speak to Ahab the prophecy that was ostensibly the basis of Jehu's anointing and the subsequent massacre of the royal family of Israel. As this tale was told, however, Ahab expressed contrition after hearing the prophecy.

1 Kings 21:27 When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. 28 Then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite: 29 "Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster on his house."

To the ancient, superstitious mind, this would explain why Yahweh didn't punish Ahab immediately, on the spot. He had repented, and so Yahweh decided to spare Ahab and bring the punishment upon Ahab's son in violation of Yahweh's own decree that sons shall not be punished for the sins of their fathers (Deut. 24:16; Ezek. 18:20). Events happened as they happened, and so wicked rulers sometimes didn't appear to suffer punishment for their deeds. That would have been the case with Ahab, who lived on for some time after his complicity in the murder of Naboth, and so the absence of immediate punishment for his heinous deed was a situation that needed an explanation to the superstitious minds of that time. There must have been a reason why the gods would allow such acts to go unpunished, and so history at that time was written to reflect plausible reasons for this. The author(s) of Kings came up with a typical explanation. Yahweh didn't punish Ahab for the murder of Naboth because he repented, and Yahweh decided to spare Ahab and bring punishment upon his son. According to the law of Moses, David deserved to die for his sin with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of her husband, but he said, "I have sinned," when Nathan the prophet denounced him (2 Sam. 12:13), so Nathan told him that Yahweh had put away his sin and so he would not die. David's repentance, then, provided an explanation for why David continued to live after committing such heinous sins.

That kind of thinking was widely reflected in the time of Ahab, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoshaphat, et al. It wasn't just an idea novel to the Hebrews. The inscription on the Moabite Stone reflected king Misha's belief that his god Chemosh rewarded the people when they did what was right but punished them when they did things to displease their god. Yahweh wouldn't punish Judah because of the righteousness of David (1 Kings 11:35-38), but he wouldn't bless Judah after the nationwide display of righteousness under the reign of Josiah, ostensibly because Manasseh, an ancestor king had been wicked (2 Kings 23:26-27). The Hebrew historians always had explanations of this type for both the fortunes and misfortunes of the people of Israel. If good fortune came their way, it was because they or someone in the nation had been righteous. If misfortune came their way, it was because they or someone in the nation had irritated Yahweh. Their history was written to reflect that belief.

That Jehu was an actual historical person is confirmed by extrabiblical references to him. He was just one of many who usurped power by rebellion, but coups d'etat didn't always succeed. When they did it was Yahweh's will. When they didn't, it wasn't Yahweh's will. Both Jehu and Hazael had succeeded in their rebellions, and so the histories of both were written as if their successes had been the will of Yahweh and had even been prophesied by Yahweh.

How hard was it for a writer to claim that such and such events, having already happened, were prophesied by Yahweh? All the author had to do was put an after-the-fact prophecy into the mouth of a character and then write the history of the event as if it had fulfilled prophecy. An example of this can be found in the case of the "man of God," who "prophesied" that Jeroboam's pagan altar would be destroyed by a "son" by the name of Josiah who would be born to the house of David (1 Kings 13:1-2), and, sure enough, a king named Josiah reigned three centuries later and "fulfilled" this very prophecy in 2 Kings 23:15-18. Amazing, isn't it, until one looks at this example critically and realizes that anyone could write an after-the-fact prophecy like this? In Joshua 6:26, Joshua "prophesied" that whoever rebuilt the city of Jericho would "lay the foundation with the loss of his firstborn son" and would "set up the gates to it with the loss of his youngest son." Over 500 years later, in the time of Ahab of Israel, a man named Hiel rebuilt Jericho, and guess what happened? "He laid the foundation with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun" (1 Kings 16:34). How easy it was to show prophecy fulfillment in those days!

To discuss completely the Old Testament passages that reflect this view of Yahweh's hand in everything, especially political affairs, would require me to write a book, so I will leave it to LJ to decide whether he wants to pursue his claim that Elisha had "prophetic insight," which had led him to go to Damascus in order to meet Hazael and "deliver" to him a prophecy. It is far more likely that the story of Elisha's encounter with Hazael was purposefully written to leave the impression with gullible readers of the time (and today too, unfortunately) that Elisha's meeting with Hazael had been prophesied, just as 1 Kings 16:34 was purposefully written to leave the impression that the rebuilding of Jericho had fulfilled a prophecy spoken by Joshua.

The same is true of the Jehu story. A military commander led a coup d'etat and seized power in Israel. To the Hebrew mind, Jehu could not have succeeded unless Yahweh had wanted him to, so the story was written to convey that Jehu's success wasn't just Yahweh's will but was something that Yahweh had even prophesied through Elijah. In the New American Bible, a footnote to 2 Kings 9:7-10 recognizes that an earlier version of the Jehu story was edited to reflect this view of Yahweh's direction of human affairs.

The editors of the Books of Kings have here added to the prophet's message the same type of indictment and sanctions against the family of Ahab as were invoked against the dynasties of Jeroboam (1 Kgs 14:10f), Baasha (1 Kgs 16:3f), and Ahab on a previous occasion (1 Kgs 21:21-24).

In other words, the NAB editors were claiming that what LJ is calling a prophecy in 2 Kings 9:7-10 was probably not even in the earlier version(s) of this book but was added by later editors. An examination of the text of 2 Kings 9 gives very strong support to this view. The story opens with Elisha giving the order to go anoint Jehu.

9:1 Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, "Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. 2 When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. 3 Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, 'Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and flee; do not linger."

Notice the last verse. Elisha told the young prophet to go anoint Jehu and say, "Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king over Israel," after which he was to open the door and flee. He was not to linger. This, however, was not what the young prophet did in the present version of the story.

6 So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel. 7 You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh. 8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9 I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. 10 The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her." Then he opened the door and fled.

So only after the young prophet had rehashed Elijah's prophecy against Ahab did he open the door and flee. If verses 7-10a are removed, the text would read like this.

6 So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel." Then he opened the door and fled.

Now the young prophet has done exactly what Elisha told him to do. He went to Ramoth-gilead (just as Elisha had told him to do), he found Jehu in the company of companions (just as Elisha had said he would), he got Jehu to leave his companions (just as Elisha had told him to do), he took Jehu inside (just as Elisha had told him to do), he poured oil on Jehu's head (just as Elisha had told him to do), he said, "Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king of Israel" (just as Elisha had told him to say), he then opened the door and fled (just as Elisha had told him to do), and he did not linger (just as Elisha had ordered him).

If the entire passage without the probable editorial redaction is shown together, we can see obvious grounds for concluding that the redaction was made by later editors.

Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, "Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, 'Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and flee; do not linger." So the young man, the young prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. He arrived while the commanders of the army were in council, and he announced, "I have a message for you, commander." "For which one of us?" asked Jehu. "For you, commander." So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel.... Then he opened the door and fled.

So the "prophecy" that LJ sees in the young prophet's statement to Jehu turns out to be a probable redaction. Originally, it was put into the book of 1 Kings as a prophetic statement to Ahab, but when the editors inserted it into the young prophet's statement to Jehu, this gave it the status of a command, just as well as any other "you shall" statement in the Bible, and we have noticed several such statements.

Without this redaction, the story of Jehu simply has a young prophet coming to Jehu, anointing him, and saying, "Thus says Yahweh: I have anointed you king over Israel," after which Jehu left for Jezreel and committed the massacres known in the Bible as "the blood of Jezreel." After all of the bloodshed, the writer of 2 Kings then had Yahweh saying to Jehu...

Because you have done well in carrying out what I consider right, and in accordance with all that was in my heart have dealt with the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel" (10:30).

So why did Hosea later condemn Jehu's actions at Jezreel? That is what LJ is going to have to explain with better evidence than his arbitrary claim that Jehu wasn't commanded to commit the massacre; it was just prophesied that he would.

LJ has indicated that he also wants to debate biblical prophecies with me, but I think he is going to learn very quickly that there is much more to "proving" prophecy fulfillment than just assuming that whatever the Bible says about prophecies and their "fulfillments" is true.

LJ:
How does FT deal with this matter [LJ's belief that Elisha went to Damascus purposefully to fulfill the prophecy spoken to Elijah]? He writes in Part 1,

The story of Hazael was written as an example of a prophet visiting a future king of Syria and prophesying that he would commit certain atrocities so terrible that the thought of them had caused Elisha to cry (acccording to the story).... I have shown above that the case of Hazael is not at all parallel to Jehu's, because the account of Hazael gives no indication that Yahweh had selected Hazael to be king and then anointed him to commit the acts that followed. Elisha had merely prophesied that they would happen, and the Bible being the Bible, we find nothing spectacular in the claim that a prophet visited a man, predicted that certain events would happen, and then the events happened. Where in the text can LJ find any indication that Yahweh wanted Hazael to commit the atrocities prophesied by Elisha?

Did you get what FT says here? FT's position is that, whereas in the case of Jehu Elisha's purpose in delivering the prophecy of 2 Kg. 9:6ff was to convey to him that Yahweh had chosen him to be king in order to destroy the house of Ahab, in the case of Hazael, however, Elisha personally went all the way to Damascus to meet Hazael, the future Syrian king, and "merely prophesied they [the events described in Hazael's prophecy] would happen"! And story had been written "as an example of a prophet visiting a future king of Syria and prophesying that he would commit certain atrocities..."!

Till:
Well, if LJ will consult Part 2 [now contained in Part 1], he will see that I developed an argument at length, which reviewed the political strife between Syrian and Israel at this time, and showed good reasons to suspect that Elisha's trip (if it was actually historical) was made in order for a prophet who knew that he was feared and respected in Israel to make a prophecy that would likely trigger a coup d'etat that would remove Benhadad from power.

That scenario is just as reasonable as LJ's speculations about a prophetic intention in the young prophet's message to Jehu (2 Kings 9:7-10). Furthermore, in Part Three [also contained now in Part 1, linked to above], I discussed the scholarly recognition that verses 7-10 were an editorial insertion into an earlier version of 2 Kings in order to give the impression that Jehu's actions at Jezreel had been prophesied long before his anointing. In that same posting, I cited several examples of after-the-fact "prophecies" that were written into the text in order to leave the impression that such events as the rebuilding of Jericho at the cost of Hiel's sons and the destruction of Jeroboam's pagan altar by Josiah had both been predicted long before the birth of either "fulfiller." Such examples as these show a probability that 2 Kings 8 was written after-the-fact to make it appear that Yahweh had known of the atrocities that Hazael would commit.

LJ has yet to grasp that he has undertaken the impossible task of trying to prove prophecy fulfillment in documents so ancient that nobody can tell for sure when they were written or how many times they were edited to make them say that the latest editors wanted them to say.

LJ:
Words fail me to describe the absurdity of such interpretations.

Till:
Well, words may fail LJ to describe what he thinks is an absurd interpretation, but what could be more absurd than his belief that ancient mystics had prophetic insights that enabled them to see into the future? I wonder if he also believes in the efficacy of crystal-ball gazing and tarot-card reading.

I'm trying to have an intelligent debate with a person who thinks that prophecies were fulfilled and that he can determine this by reading ancient books that he cannot date, which stylistically show evidence of multiple authorships and editings.

I'd like to see him prove to us that the statement attributed to the young prophet in 2 Kings 9:7-10 was actually said in an actual historical event and that it isn't just an editorial edition that was made to an earlier version of the book. This is something that LJ will have to prove in order to make his case.

LJ:
The readers have seen above that the prophecies delivered to Hazael and Jehu both stem from the divine commission originally given to Elijah, Elisha's predecessor.

Till:
And LJ knows that that "commission" was an actual historical event how? He labors under the illusion that what 1 and 2 Kings say now are historically accurate accounts, but does everyone remember the 30+ K tangent he sent us on to dispute the biblical inerrancy position?

He has made his bed, so now I will insist that he lie in it. Let him prove to us that a god ever made the statement to Elijah that is claimed in 1 Kings 19:15ff. Is it at all possible that the book was written just to reflect the belief that the Hebrew god Yahweh went about talking to prophets?

LJ:
Elijah was commanded to anoint Hazael, Jehu and Elisha (as successor) and in delivering these prophecies, Elisha was simply carrying out the divine commission given to Elijah now delegated to him.

Till:
Well, I have already shown this, but I guess I will have to do it again. As the alleged "prophecy" to Elijah was made, it was issued as a command that Elijah was to execute.

1 Kings 19:15 Then Yahweh said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

The "commission" was directed to Elijah. He, not Elisha, was to return on his way to the wilderness of Damascus. When he arrived, he was to anoint Hazael. Something was very wrong in the telling of this story. Why didn't Elijah execute this "commission"? Where can LJ find that Elisha was "delegated" to do that which Elijah was told to do but apparently didn't do?

LJ:
In Part Three [now in Part 1] of his reply, FT himself acknowledges that in anointing Jehu Elisha was "merely executing" the command originally given to Elijah to anoint Jehu.

Till:
Yes, I would agree that the story was probably written to reflect this belief of the author. For some reason, 1 Kings was written to contain a command given to Elijah to anoint Jehu, but for reasons unknown, the rest of Elijah's life was recorded in 1 and 2 Kings with no reference at all to his execution of this command. The fact that 2 Kings was then written to depict Elisha's sending of a young prophet to anoint Jehu would be a rather clear indication that the author of this book at least thought that Elijah had never carried out his "commission." As we will see, this is hardly any support for LJ's position on Elisha's encounter with Hazael.

LJ:
But he conveniently overlooks the fact that in the same commission Elijah was commanded, "Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria" (2 Kg. 19;15, emphasis mine).

Till:
No, I haven't overlooked that. I have simply assumed nothing except what the text justifies, and the text gives no indication that Elijah ever executed this command. Some biblicists would argue that the silence of the Bible on this subject doesn't mean that Elijah didn't anoint Hazael, but the subsequent anointing of Jehu by an emissary sent by Elisha would certainly be a supporting implication that Elijah did not anoint Hazel.

LJ:
Elisha, as Elijah's successor, was in Damascus in obedience to that command. Was FT by any chance overlooking that fact?

Till:
Overlooking that fact? No, I just wasn't assuming something that the text does not justify. If Elisha went to Damascus "in obedience to that command" [the one given to Elijah], then why doesn't the text record that he anointed Hazael? But it doesn't record that any anointing ever happened. LJ is merely assuming what he wants to assume in order to find help that he desperately needs.

Here again is the story of Elisha's encounter with Hazael.

2 Kings 8:7 Elisha went to Damascus while King Ben-hadad of Aram [Syria] was ill. When it was told him, "The man of God has come here," 8 the king said to Hazael, "Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God. Inquire of Yahweh through him, whether I shall recover from this illness." 9 So Hazael went to meet him, taking a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camel loads. When he entered and stood before him, he said, "Your son King Ben-hadad of Aram [Syria] has sent me to you, saying, 'Shall I recover from this illness?'" 10 Elisha said to him, "Go, say to him, 'You shall certainly recover'; but Yahweh has shown me that he shall certainly die." 11 He fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was ashamed. Then the man of God wept. 12 Hazael asked, "Why does my lord weep?" He answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel; you will set their fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women." 13 Hazael said, "What is your servant, who is a mere dog, that he should do this great thing?" Elisha answered, "Yahweh has shown me that you are to be king over Aram [Syria]." 14 Then he left Elisha, and went to his master Ben-hadad, who said to him, "What did Elisha say to you?" And he answered, "He told me that you would certainly recover." 15 But the next day he took the bed-cover and dipped it in water and spread it over the king's face, until he died. And Hazael succeeded him.

Incidentally, I wonder if LJ has yet taken notice of the fact that, as this story is written, Elisha (a prophet of Yahweh) told Hazael to tell Benhadad a lie. That wasn't very moral of Elisha, was it?

The main point, however, is that there is no mention at all of any anointing ceremony, so LJ is claiming that Elisha went to Damascus to carry out a command that had been given to his predecessor Elijah, but the "inspired" account contains no mention at all of Elisha's doing the only thing to Hazael that Elijah had been commanded to do.

Curious, isn't it?

LJ:
If Jehu was anointed to be king of Israel, then Hazael, too, was anointed to be king of Syria; otherwise, Elisha was disobeying one element of the divine commission.

Till:
Well, wait a minute. Did Elijah disobey both elements of the divine commission? I ask because Elijah didn't anoint either Hazael or Jehu, even though, as this tale was told, a god told him to anoint both. If Elijah could have neglected both elements of the command and still be considered so righteous that he was taken directly into heaven without dying, then it seems to me that Elisha wouldn't have done anything outrageously wrong if he did not do one of the anointings [Hazael's] that he was never told to do in the first place.

At any rate. let's just grant LJ his assumption for the sake of argument. Elisha went to Damascus for no other purpose but to anoint Hazael and thereby carry out "the divine command" that had been given to Elijah. That concession doesn't help LJ's case at all, because the Hazael account was written to show that the coming atrocities that Hazael would commit against Israel were distressing to the prophet Elisha, so distressing that the thought of them brought tears to his eyes. In other words, there is nothing in this story to indicate that Yahweh wanted Hazael to commit these atrocities, but there is a clear indication that these were atrocities that Yahweh didn't want to happen. On the other hand, the Jehu story was written to show that Jehu's atrocities against the house of Ahab were the very thing that Yahweh wanted to happen. As already noted, 2 Kings 10:30 said that what Jehu did to the house of Ahab was in accordance with everything that was in Yahweh's heart.

Does LJ seriously expect us to believe that he can't see the differences in these two cases? Certainly, he can see it, yet he has the audacity to call the story of Hazael a "true parallel" to the Jehu account. Talk about words failing to describe adequately the absurdity of one's position, we certainly have it here.

Finally, let's just consider the absurdity of the Hazael story. As 1 Kings 19:15ff was written, Yahweh commanded the anointment of a king, whom he knew in advance would commit various moral atrocities. Who can believe it? If Yahweh knew at the time that Hazael would become the bad apple he turned out to be, why didn't he just select someone else to be king over Syria?

Let me warn LJ not to reply to this with examples of other kings who turned out to be "evil" after Yahweh had selected them. That's my point exactly. Did Yahweh actually select these fiends to be kings or did the author(s) of the books of Kings simply live in a time when people generally believed that those who became kings did so because they had been chosen by their god Yahweh? That belief was clearly expressed in Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

Daniel 4:24 (T)his is the interpretation, O king, and it is a decree of the Most High that has come upon my lord the king: 25 You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the wild animals. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen, you shall be bathed with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and gives it to whom he will.

Hazael became king of Syria through the winds of chance and circumstance that brings every ruler to power, the good as well as the bad, but the superstitious minds of that time could never have thought that a king was a king, just because... well, just because events had turned out in the right way to make him king. They had to believe that even those who were cruel and "wicked" were kings because, for some reason, their gods wanted him to be king.

We see in people like LJ that the human mind hasn't made much progress in the last 35 centuries. He reads an ancient document, whose date is unknown and which may have been edited and reedited and reedited, and accepts at face value what it says.

Well, I have to revise that statement. He doesn't accept it at face value. When the face-value reading of the text doesn't say what he would like for it to say, he fills in the gaps with his own desired meanings to make them fit his irrational belief in prophecy fulfillment.

LJ:
Although no specific anointing ceremony is mentioned in the case of Hazael, the purpose and effect of the prophecy delivered to him must amount to an anointing.

Till:
It must? Why must it? See how LJ is filling in the gaps to get the meaning he wants?

LJ:
No anointing ceremony is mentioned in the case of Elisha, too, though he was clearly appointed as Elijah's successor (1 Kg. 19:19-21).

Till:
Why does it necessarily follow that Elisha was anointed? Let's look at the account.

1 Kings 19:19 So he [Elijah] set out from there [Mt. Horeb], and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. 20 He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." Then Elijah said to him, "Go back again; for what have I done to you?" 21 He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

That is all that the passage relates about Elisha's "selection," and as LJ has noted, it doesn't mention that Elijah "anointed" Elisha. It does, however, relate an incident that was ceremonial in nature, i. e., Elijah's casting of his mantle over Elisha. As 2 Kings 2:8ff was written, Elijah's mantle imparted supernatural abilities, which Elijah used to part the water of the Jordan River just before he was "taken up" by the fiery chariot and the whirlwind. Elijah's mantle was left behind, and Elisha took it back with him and also used it to part the river on his return.

The point is that, as the story was written, this was quite a mantle, so maybe the throwing of the mantle onto Elisha as Elijah passed by him could have been intended by whoever wrote this section of 1 Kings to be understood as a selection ceremony. In other words, the casting of the mantle was Elijah's way of "anointing" Elisha.

LJ may argue that Elijah was commanded to anoint Elisha, and the casting of a mantle would not have constituted an anointing. If so, LJ will be demanding a strict interpretation of 1 Kings 19:15ff, which he doesn't impose on any other passages in the Elijah/Elisha-Jehu accounts. What sounds very much like a command to wipe out the house of Ahab, for example, wasn't really a command; it was just a "prophecy." Then an encounter with Hazael, which brings tears to Elisha's eyes as he realizes by prophetic insight that Hazael will commit atrocities against Israel, becomes an execution of Elijah's command to anoint Hazael. If Elisha's scene with Hazael was an "anointing," then it is just as reasonable to consider Elijah's casting of his mantle onto Elisha an anointing. After all, these passages are all parts of what scholars recognize is a patchwork book that underwent revisions.

Besides all this, Elijah obviously didn't carry out two elements of his commission (the anointings of Hazael and Jehu), so why should we suppose that he completed the third?

LJ:
Obviously therefore the word "anoint" in the divine commission given to Elijah must be understood in a broader sense as meaning "appoint" or "designate."

Till:
So the casting of the mantle could be considered to be the same. If not, why not? In the case of Jehu, however, a ceremonial anointing was conducted, just as Samuel had anointed Saul (1 Sam. 10:1ff) and as Nathan had anointed Solomon (1 Kings 1:39). Anointings like these were comparable to coronation ceremonies in which kings and queens are publicly crowned, and the anointing ceremony of Jehu contained the words now in dispute, i. e., "You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab...." This and the ensuing comments carry the obvious import of a commission to Jehu, just as surely as the words Yahweh spoke to Elijah on Mt. Horeb conveyed the import of a commission. We have only to see the two passages juxtaposed to see this.

Elijah's "commission":

1 Kings 19:15 Then Yahweh said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

Jehu's "commission"

2 Kings 9:7 You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh. 8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9 I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. 10 The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her." Then he opened the door and fled.

As noted earlier, the words immediately above attributed to the "young prophet" who anointed Jehu were probably redacted into the text by a later editor, but that isn't my problem. The redaction was made in a way that makes the present text read as a command or commission delivered to Jehu. If LJ is going to make these words into a "prophecy," he'll have to produce much better evidence than he has yet shown us.

LJ:
King Cyrus of Persia, a pagan, is called the Lord's "anointed" (Isaiah 45:1), even though clearly in his case there couldn't have any physical anointing with oil by a prophet as in Jehu's case.

Till:
Well, I see no need to comment on this. Instead, I'll just thank LJ for giving us another reason to see the casting of Elijah's mantle as Elisha's "anointing."

LJ:
The literal anointing of Jehu was only a symbolical act to convey the point that God had chosen Jehu as the next king of Israel.

Till:
But in this case, the story was revised (as previously noted) to add a statement that conveyed the import of a commission to destroy the house of Ahab.

LJ:
In the Bible, many such symbolic acts accompanying prophecies can be found. The physical anointing of Jehu did not in any way imply that God approved of Jehu's character, or that He considered Jehu to be a "man after his own heart," as David was, or that He was "well-pleased" in him.

Till:
As also previously noted, it seemed that Yahweh was so often a bad judge of character. He selected kings and emissaries only to have them turn out to be bad eggs. A rational reader of the Bible would ask why, but this question has apparently not occurred to LJ, who sees problems in the biblical text and then leans over backwards to try to explain them.

Whether Yahweh approved of Jehu's character or not, the fact still remains that the text of 2 Kings 9:6ff, as it now reads, conveys the sense of a commission that Jehu received to destroy the house of Ahab. LJ has written a lot of words, but he hasn't really addressed this problem yet.

LJ:
Otherwise, we have also to conclude that the use of the expression "the anointed" in relation to the Persian king Cyrus (Is. 45:1) implies that God approved of this pagan king. Or that the use of the title "servant" in relation to king Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 25:9; 27:6; 43:10) implied that God thought well of this king, on whom prophecies of judgement are pronounced elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah.

Till:
As previously explained, the Hebrew mind couldn't conceive of a king ruling without its being the will of Yahweh, so if Nebuchadnezzar captured Judah and took captives back to Babylon, there had to be a divine purpose behind it. Thus Nebuchadnezzar was seen as the "servant" of Yahweh who had executed Yahweh's will against the Judeans, whom Yahweh was angry with at the time. There's nothing difficult at all about this.

Then along came Cyrus to issue a decree that allowed the Judeans to return home. Hallelujah, hallelujah! Cyrus just had to be Yahweh's anointed. That was how the people at that time thought.

Now how does any of this resolve the problem in 2 Kings 9:6ff as it presently reads. We're still waiting to see LJ prove that this was just a "prophecy."

LJ:
Elisha's basic reason for delivering these prophecies to Hazael and Jehu was to inform them of God's will concerning certain future events and bring about the fulfilment of the prophecies.

Till:
Well, I won't let LJ beg the very question he signed on to prove. Was the young prophet's statement to Jehu a "prophecy"? LJ needs to prove that it was a prophecy before he tells us what the "basic reason" was for "delivering" the prophecy to Jehu. I have shown evidence that the young prophet's statement wasn't even in the earlier versions of 2 Kings but was an insertion by a later editor who apparently wanted to tie Jehu's coup d'etat to Elijah's prophecy against Ahab in 1 Kings 21. Inserting it as he did, however, with no transitional devices to tell readers that this was just a prophecy, the redaction gave to the statement the import of a command.

At any rate, let's just concede to LJ for the sake of argument that verse 7-10 were simply the young prophet's utterance of a prophecy. How would that help LJ's case? After all the blood had been shed, Yahweh alleged said to Jehu that in the matter of Jezreel, he had done well in executing that which was right in Yahweh's eyes and had done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in Yahweh's heart (2 Kings 10:30). LJ's position therefore forces him to say that Yahweh punished descendants of Jehu four generations later because a distant ancestor had done something that was pleasing to Yahweh and according to what Yahweh had wanted done.

If LJ wants to see this as a solution, well, what can I say?

LJ:
One may say that by conveying these prophecies to their protagonists, Elisha was "inviting" them to act them out so that divine judgements could be executed through them. Remember that it was for judgement that Elijah was commissioned originally to anoint Hazael and Jehu: "...him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay..." (1 Kg. 19:17). God wanted to execute judgement upon his own people for their unfaithfulness by the hand of Hazael and upon the house of Ahab by the hand of Jehu for well-known reasons.

Till:
Does everyone see how LJ either begs the question or argues by assertion in nearly every sentence he writes? At the beginning of this section, he told us what Elisha's "basic reason" was for "delivering" the prophecy to Jehu, a statement that begs the question of whether this was indeed a prophecy. Now he tells us that "God wanted to execute judgement upon his own people for their unfaithfulness by the hand of Hazael and upon the house of Ahab by the hand of Jehu for well-known reasons," so he is now asserting that "God" was involved in these tales about Hazael and Jehu. I readily admit that the people of this superstitious era thought that their gods directed every piddling little event in their lives, but I will have to insist that LJ undertake to prove his assertions. I'd really like to see him prove that Yahweh wanted to execute judgment against Israel for "unfaithfulness" and against the house of Ahab "for well known reasons." I'm not going to dignify LJ's superstitious assertions with replies that indicate the assertions deserve rebuttals. Let him offer supporting evidence for the assertions, and then I will gladly reply to them.

LJ:
"The New Oxford Annotated Bible" (containing the RSV) has the following note on 2 Kg. 8:7-15: Elijah was able to carry out only one (the third) of the three commands of the "still small voice" at Horeb (1 Kg.19:15-16). Elisha now proceeds to carry out the first command of the "voice." The idea behind this is that Israel needed to be punished for its sins, and that Hazael was divinely ordained to do this work. The prophet was sorrowful over this doleful necessity (vv.11-12), but nevertheless felt that God's will must be done....

Till:
Okay, I'll offer LJ a deal. I will accept this footnote in the New Oxford Annotated Bible if he will accept the NAB footnote on 2 Kings 9:7-10, which I have already entered into the record. This footnote stated what LJ will find in scholarly commentaries (which would exclude the ones published in Grand Rapids, Michigan) if he will bother to check: these verses were added by a later editor. In an earlier posting, I did an analysis of 2 Kings 9:1-10 to show that (1) Elisha gave a step-by-step command to the young prophet whom he sent to anoint Jehu, (2) the young prophet found at Ramoth-gilead exactly what Elisha said he would find, and (3) the young prophet did exactly what Elisha had told him to do except for adding the statement in verses 7-10. If those verses are omitted, the execution of Elisha's orders were carried out detail for detail. This is compelling evidence that the original version of 2 Kings didn't even contain what LJ is claiming was a prophecy and not a command.

LJ has some serious problems to work on, and I'm beginning to doubt that he will ever do it. How much longer does he expect me to waste time on 35K postings that don't even address my rebuttal arguments. He is proceeding in this debate almost as if he didn't even have an opponent.

I am posting rebuttal arguments. I expect LJ to try to answer them.

LJ:
If Elisha delivered his prophecy to Hazael without any expectation of its fulfilment by the latter, but "merely prophesied," then it is inconsistent with the interpretation that, on the other hand, the message ("errand" in KJV) to Jehu was delivered with the expectation that he would fulfil it as a command.

Till:
It's hard to reply to silly stuff like this without leaving to readers who may not know me that I take biblical prophecies seriously. In reality, all that I do is accept certain premises of my opponent for the sake of argument. I personally believe that if people like Elijah and Elisha were actual historical characters, they had no more ability to see into the future than a palm reader in the town I live in, whose house is just a shack by the railroad. Despite the fact that the reality of where and how she lives shows that she has no ability to see into the future, she still makes enough income from the gullible to make a living at it and to run regular ads in the local newspaper. When I encounter people who believe in her palm reading ability (as I sometimes do), I find it hard to talk civilly to them as they proclaim how wonderful she is. In the same way, I find it difficult to remain civil with people like LJ, who live in the 21st century but still cling to the superstitions of an age when prophets ranted and raved probably in greater numbers than the palm readers, crystal ball gazers, and tarot card readers of our time. Therefore, I want to make sure that people don't mistake anything I am saying. If I refer to prophecies in any way that seems to take them serious, I hope readers will understand that I am arguing only from the point of view of humoring LJ's gullibility.

In the matter of what he said above, I'm sure that if Elisha was a real person who was taken even halfway as seriously as the Bible indicates, then he was probably deluded enough himself to think that he was speaking through the guidance of his guide, so let's just assume that Elisha made his prophetic utterance to Hazael with the expectation that it would be fulfilled. That would be no help at all to LJ's case, because he continues to ignore what I have repeatedly pointed out. Elisha's encounter contains only the statement to Hazael that "Yahweh has shown me that you will be king over Syria" (2 Kings 8:13), and the prophetic scene of Hazael's atrocities against Israel was preceded by an expression of dismay and sorrow so evident that even Hazael asked Elisha what was wrong. So even if Elisha did have full expectations that this prophecy would be fulfilled, it was made in a way that clearly communicated that the prophecy was not expressing something that he wanted.

This is what LJ thinks is a "true parallel" to the anointing of Jehu, which, as I have repeatedly pointed out, contains no statement that even suggests that either the young prophet or Yahweh did not want Jehu to eradicate the house of Ahab.

LJ:
For these prophecies were delivered in execution of two elements of the same divine commission. Perhaps FT has so far not seen that inconsistency?

Till:
The only inconsistencies I can see are in the verbal gymnastics that LJ is performing to try to find in Hazael a "true parallel" to Jehu. I have explained and explained the differences in the two examples that keep them from being "true parallels." When, if ever, is LJ going to reply to this rebuttal?

LJ:
Both prophecies were followed by the two protagonists involved acting them out.

Till:
Once again, LJ begs the very question he is obligated to prove. Was the young prophet's statement to Jehu a "prophecy"? He needs to prove that it was before he asserts that the "prophecy" was followed by the protagonist involved in acting it out.

The fact is that LJ can't even prove that his alleged prophecy was even in the earliest versions of 2 Kings. I have analyzed 2 Kings 9:1-10 to point out textual reasons why verses 7-10 are considered a later editorial insertion, so without this probable redaction, the story of Jehu contains only these elements.

• Elisha sent a young prophet to anoint Jehu king over Israel.
• The young prophet went to Ramoth-gilead and said, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, I have anointed you king over Israel," and nothing more.
• Jehu went to Jezreel and massacred both Ahaziah the king of Judah and the royal family of Israel.
• Jehu massacred the Baal worshipers in Israel.
• Yahweh himself said to Jehu, ""Because you have done well in carrying out what I consider right, and in accordance with all that was in my heart have dealt with the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."

I contend that even if LJ could prove that the young prophet's statement included verses 7-10 and that this was obviously just a prophecy and not a command to Jehu, there would still be a very serious problem in Hosea's condemnation of the house of Jehu four generations later for something that a distant ancestor had done, but if LJ cannot establish that the young prophet even made the statement that LJ alleges was just a prophecy, he is very definitely in serious trouble.

Now this is the heart of the matter, and it is a problem that LJ needs to address. If he just sends back more of the same without addressing this matter, he will establish that he is just another prophecy-fulfillment buff who will sacrifice intellectual integrity in order to defend a cherished belief.

LJ:
Knowing this (prophetically), why should Elisha have intended the message to Jehu only to be a command and that given to Hazael only a prophecy? My position is if the message to Hazael was only a prophecy, then the message to Jehu, too, was a prophecy. On the other hand, if the message to Jehu was a command, then that given to Hazael, too, was a command. Let us be consistent.

Till:
But the two cases aren't even remotely parallel, much less "true parallels." I'm going to cut and paste below a section from another posting in which I spelled out the reasons why Hazael cannot be considered a true parallel to Jehu. I will expect LJ to take this rebuttal point by point and show where I have erred in my reasoning.

Anyone should immediately see that 1 Kings 19:15ff cannot be a parallel to 2 Kings 9:6ff, because (1) the former was spoken by Yahweh to a prophet who was commanded to go and perform anointings of third-party individuals, (2) 2 Kings 9:6ff was spoken by a prophet to the subject [Jehu] of the anointing, (3) 1 Kings 19:15ff. lacks at least two elements that are in the Jehu examples, and (4) even if 1 Kings 19:15ff is combined with 2 Kings 8:10ff, it still lacks all of the elements in the Jehu example and contains an element of grief and disapproval that is not in the Jehu example. Let's analyze first the steps in the Jehu example as they are presented in 2 Kings 9, and then I will propose a hypothetical rewriting of 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 8:10 to make the composite a parallel to the Jehu example.

The Jehu example: (Step1, 1 Kings 9:1-3) Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, "Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, 'Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and flee; do not linger." (Step 2, verse 4-5): So the young man, the young prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. He arrived while the commanders of the army were in council, and he announced, "I have a message for you, commander." "For which one of us?" asked Jehu. "For you, commander." (Step 3, verse 6): So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel. (Step 4, verse 7): You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh Hence, we see that there were four distinct steps in the Jehu example: (1) A first party [Elisha] issued to a second party [another prophet] a command to go to Ramoth-gilead to anoint a third party [Jehu.] (2) The second party [young prophet] went to Ramoth-gilead and found the third party [Jehu]. (3) The second party anointed the third party. (4) The second party told the third party that he would strike down the house of Ahab. So that I wouldn't beg the question of whether step 4 was the issuance of a command or a prophecy, I avoided the use of either word, but when this four-step example is compared to the scene in 1 Kings 19, we can easily see that it was not parallel to the Jehu example for the following reasons: (1) Only two parties, Yahweh and Elijah, are in the scene in 1 Kings. (2) The third parties, Hazael and Jehu, never appear; they are only referred to. (3) The command to anoint Hazael and Jehu was never executed by Elijah. (4) The statement of what Hazael and Jehu would do after their anointings was never spoken to either party. These are significant differences that would not allow any reasonable person to say that the scene in 1 Kings 19 was a "true parallel" to the Jehu example. In order for the scene in 1 Kings to be a true parallel, it would have to be combined with 2 Kings 8:10ff and written like this. "Then Yahweh said to Elijah, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Syria." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 1 in the Jehu example.] "So Elijah went to the wilderness of Damascus, and when he arrived, he found Hazael the servant of Benhadad and said, "I have a message for you." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 2 in the Jehu example.] "And Hazael arose and went into the house, and Elisha poured oil on his head and said to him, 'Thus says Yahweh, I anoint you king over the people of Syrian." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 3 in the Jehu example.] "And you shall slay everyone who escapes from the sword of Jehu. You will kill all the young men of Israel with the sword and will dash to pieces their little ones, and rip open their women with child." [If written like this, we would have a "true parallel" to step 4 in the Jehu example.] If this had been the scenario with Hazael, then without a doubt Hazael would have thought that the prophet Elisha was delivering to him a command from the god of Israel to kill everyone who escaped Jehu's sword, to kill all the young men of Israel with the word, to dash to pieces their little one, and to rip open their pregnant women. The Hazael example not only lacks steps three and four, but it contains an element not in the Jehu example. That extra element is Elisha's expression of dismay and disapproval over the atrocities he predicted that Hazael would do after he became king. The "son of the prophet" who went to Jehu and anointed him king expressed no comparable dismay or disapproval. Without all of the steps that are in the Jehu example and with the inclusion of the element of dismay and disapproval in the Hazael example, LJ is left without even a remote parallel, much less a "true parallel," in Elisha's visit to Hazael. He has only a fanciful yarn where a god allegedly spoke to Elijah and gave him a commission that Elijah never executed (or at least no record of it was ever made). I will have more to say about this passage--in fact, I was the one who introduced it earlier--but I'll conclude my comments at this point by noting that this was a "commission" given to Elijah this well before his death. The commission was given to Elijah not to Elisha, and the OT record makes no claim that Elijah ever anointed Hazael king over Syria or Jehu king over Israel. The Old Testament doesn't even claim that Elisha ever anointed Hazael king of Syria, so LJ sees a "true parallel" to 2 Kings 9:6ff in a passage that issued to an entirely different prophet a commission that was never executed by either the prophet or his successor.

That's a curious way of finding "true parallels."

I urge LJ to take his own advice and "be consistent." If he cannot establish parallels in all major points of these two stories, then he cannot argue that Hazael was a "true parallel" to Jehu.

LJ:
The reader will see from the foregoing that FT overlooks the deeper basis for the prophecy given to Hazael being a true parallel to that given to Jehu and bases his view, that the former is only a prophecy but the latter a command, on superficial aspects of the prophecies: the fact that the message to Jehu starts with an announcement that Yahweh had chosen Jehu as the king of Israel followed by a description of the atrocious acts he would commit makes it (for FT) a command to Jehu.

Till:
The reader will also see that LJ continues to beg the question he is supposed to be proving. He continually speaks of the disputed passage as a "prophecy," but (1) he has not proven that it was intended to be just a prophecy, and (2) he hasn't even proven that his alleged "prophecy" was in the original version of 2 Kings. I have explained elsewhere the reasons why scholars see verses 7-10 as an editorial insertion into the Jehu story.

LJ has yet to reply to this, but, of course, he has yet to reply to much of anything that I have posted in my replies.

LJ:
The order of presentation of these two elements of the message is a determinative factor for him. This is a very subjective interpretation. The readers will note that the same two elements are also present in the message given to Hazael albeit in reverse order. The verse "The Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria" in the message to Hazael is the equivalent of "I have anointed thee king over the people of the Lord..." of the message to Jehu. Though expressed in different words, the message is the same.

LJ:
I disagree with LJ's conclusion, but in order to try to get this guy to reply to arguments, I'm going to concede this point for the sake of argument. What he is saying would be equivalent to a crystal-ball gazer's saying to someone, "The Lord has shown me that you will be king of England," and then arguing that this statement would be the equivalent of an actual coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Who would believe that?

At any rate, for the sake of argument, I'm going to concede his point here to try to force him to reply to my rebuttal argument that listed the elements in the Jehu story and then analyzed the Hazael story to show the missing elements and to point out the "grief element" in the Hazel story that wasn't in the Jehu scene. I cut and pasted this prior rebuttal (which LJ has never addressed) to the end of Part Four in this series.

I will expect LJ to reply to it point by point, but I decided several days ago that LJ, whose initial messages to me indicated that he would be an able opponent, isn't really any different from the other biblicists we have seen in this forum. He skips the arguments and rebuttals that he can't answer and goes on his merry way as if nothing has been said to impeach his position.

LJ has been a major disappointment to me.

LJ:
If God shows one of his prophets that so-and-so would be king over such-and-such a country, then it is because God has appointed (or "anointed") that person to that position.

Till:
LJ is begging questions again. As I have repeatedly pointed out in this debate, the people of that time--and not just the Hebrews--thought that their gods chose those who were to become kings, but the fact that they thought this doesn't make it so. LJ, who doesn't think the Bible is inerrant, nevertheless seems to accept the inerrancy of the ancient superstition that the gods ruled in the affairs of men and determined who would be their rulers. He can think that if he wants to, but he shouldn't expect us to believe it.

LJ:
For "the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom.13:1).

Till:
See what I mean? Since LJ doesn't think the Bible is inerrant, I wonder if he would favor us with a statement of how he can know that Romans 13:1 makes a true statement. By now, it should be evident to all that LJ is a person who accepts as truth anything in the Bible that will help whatever cherished beliefs he may have, but otherwise he isn't a biblical inerrantist. He is the one who took this position, so he will now have to understand that I will not allow him to assume the accuracy of passages that he wants to select as proof texts of whatever he is arguing for.

LJ:
That is the theology of the Bible.

Till:
Well, yes, but the Bible is not an errant work. Remember? Now let's see LJ prove that it was inerrant when it said that "the powers that be are ordained of God."

LJ:
The different order of the two elements of the messages is due to the different situations in which they were delivered.

Till:
Oh, I see. I also see that LJ is really not much different from biblical inerrantists. Like them, LJ claims to know what the intentions of biblical writers were in disputed passages. He knows, for example, why the order of the "two elements" in the two stories were reversed. The reversal was due to "the different situations in which they were delivered." That explains everything, doesn't it?

Now he needs to explain to us how he knows this?

LJ:
In the case of Jehu, Elisha instructed a junior prophet to deliver the message to Jehu and then open the door and flee immediately (2 Kg. 9:3).

Till:
But according to the present version of the story, the junior prophet didn't open the door and flee immediately. As explained earlier (several times), this is an indication that the alleged "prophecy" was editorially inserted at a later date, because without it, the text reads to show that Elisha gave instructions to the young prophet, and the young prophet found everything at Ramoth-gilead to be as Elisha had said, after which he did exactly what Elisha had told him to do. That is, of course, without the probable editorial insertion in verses 7-10. With those verses included, the young prophet did not do as Elisha said and open the door and flee immediately.

LJ:
The junior prophet's job was simply to deliver the message as fast as he could and then flee.

Till:
But according to the present version of the story, he didn't flee immediately. My previous analysis of 2 Kings 9:1-10 shows that Elisha gave specific steps that the young prophet was to follow and that he followed them step by step until he completed the anointing statement. At that point, he didn't open the door and flee immediately. Why didn't he?

Well, as the story was originally written, he probably did, but the editorial insertion of verses 7-10 added another element, i. e., a command to destroy the house of Ahab. So LJ is arguing that a statement that very likely was not in the original version was a "prophecy." To prove his case, he must establish that the young prophet really did make this statement.

LJ:
And the most logical and efficient order for the two elements of the message to be presented was first to announce that God had "anointed" (or designated) Jehu as the next king of Israel and then describe what God would accomplish through him. On the other hand, in the case of Hazael, there was no such haste, and it was Hazael who came to Elisha (although, as mentioned above, Elisha clearly expected and awaited his visit--that was the purpose of his going to Damascus!) with an enquiry from his master (2 Kg. 8:7-9).

Till:
LJ is again begging the question of why Elisha went to Damascus. The story as written doesn't say why he went, so any purpose assigned to his visit would be just an assumption, whether it is LJ's assumption or mine (which I presented in an earlier posting).

The point is that LJ is trying to make a case from an ancient document whose dating is uncertain and which probably underwent later editings. How can people 3500 years removed from the writing of the document know either what happened or what the recorder of the events really wrote down?

LJ:
So Elisha first answered, "Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die,"

Till:
Yes, as the story was written, Elisha told Hazael to go tell the king of Syria a lie.

LJ:
and then gazed at Hazael fixedly because Elisha knew how the Syrian king would die. Hazael was embarassed ("ashamed") because he realized that Elisha knew his secret designs.

Till:
Let's look at the passage so that we can see that who was ashamed is a question hard to determine from careless writing used to tell this tale.

2 Kings 8:10 Elisha said to him, "Go, say to him, 'You shall certainly recover'; but Yahweh has shown me that he shall certainly die." 11 He fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was ashamed. Then the man of God wept. 12 Hazael asked, "Why does my lord weep?" He answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel; you will set their fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women."

Now did Elisha fix his gaze and stare at Hazael until Hazael was ashamed, or did Hazael fix his gaze and stare at Elisha until Elisha was ashamed? Either interpretation is possible because of the poor pronoun references of the inspired writer. The text could mean what LJ said above, or it could mean that after Hazael was told to tell Benhadab that he would recover even though Yahweh had shown Elisha that he would die, Hazael stared at Elisha until Elisha became ashamed at having told Hazael to lie.

This is just one example of many problems that readers confront when they try to make sense out of a book that was written in ancient times before the art of writing had advanced enough for writers to communicate more accurately.

The point is that this verse doesn't necessarily imply that Hazael experienced shame because he knew that Elisha knew his "designs." That is merely an assumption that LJ is reading into the text, but there is nothing at all unusual about a Bible believer's reading into the text what he wants it to say.

LJ:
That is probably what the writer intended to convey by vs.11.

Till:
It could be what the writer intended to convey, but it is by no means certain, and LJ needs certitude in order to make his case. It will not be sufficient for him to prove that this may have been a prophecy. As a matter of fact, if he proves beyond all reasonable doubt that it was just a prophecy, he will still have the problem of explaining why Yahweh would punish an entire line of people for something that a distant ancestor did, which was in accordance with all that was in Yahweh's heart.

LJ:
Then the thought of the atrocities that the usurper Hazael would commit against the people of Israel made the prophet weep. On being asked the reason for weeping, the prophet described the atrocities that he would commit (vs.12). He then asks, "How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?" (vs.13, NIV). As the note on vs.13 in "The NIV Study Bible" says, "Hazael did not show repulsion at these violent acts but saw no possibility to gain the power necessary to accomplish them" (for this metaphorical use of "dog" see... 2 Sam. 9:8 [where in humility Mephibosheth likens himself to a "dead dog"]).

Till:
Does everyone see the inconsistency here? In his statements prior to this, LJ had argued that Hazael was shamed by Elisha's stare, because he knew that the prophet knew his "designs," but here LJ is arguing that Hazael saw no possibility that he could gain the power to accomplish what Elisha was predicting. So LJ is arguing that Hazael had "designs" but did not think it possible that he could gain the power to execute those designs.

LJ:
Then Elisha answers, "The Lord has shown me that you will become of Aram" (vs.13). The reader will note that the order of presentation of the two basic elements of the prophecy was determined by the context in which the prophetic words were uttered. It would have been most inappropriate for Elisha to blurt out as soon as he sighted Hazael, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over Aram. And thou shalt slay thy master Benhadad and do evil unto the children of Israel...," etc!

Till:
Why would that have been inappropriate? Well, it would have been "inappropriate," because LJ says so, and LJ says so, because he needs to scrounge up some kind of meaning to this text to support his claim of a "true parallel." If Yahweh (through Elisha) had sent a prophet to anoint Jehu king over Israel and if this prophet had "blurted out," that Yahweh had anointed him king over Israel and that he would destroy the house of Ahab, why couldn't Elisha have "blurted out" the purpose of his trip to Hazael?

Apparently, LJ would be lost if he could not argue by assertions and begged question. That puts him into the company of practically all Bible defenders.

LJ:
So FT's "hypothetical revision of Elisha's visit to Hazael" simply does not fit here.

Till:
It doesn't? Why doesn't it? Where did LJ take the points in my analysis of the Syrian/Israelite conflicts at this time, the superstitious esteem in which Benhadad held Elisha, etc., and show that it more unlikely than his "true parallel" claim? I don't recall that he ever did that. I'm not arguing that my scenario is correct, but he is arguing for a "true parallel" scenario; therefore, he is obligated to prove and not just assert what the writer(s) of these passages meant.

LJ:
What is required of a parallel is substantial equivalence, not conformity in superficial features.

Till:
Well, of course I will agree with that if by "substantial equivalence," LJ means the same elements, but I won't agree if he means only that the two examples have some of the same elements. The absence of elements (like the anointing ceremony) in one example and the presence of additional elements (like the weeping scene) in the other can certainly keep two cases with similar but not identical elements from being "true parallels."

LJ:
2 Kg. 8:9-13 is a parallel to 2 Kg. 9:6ff primarily because they both stem from the same commission given to Elijah.

Till:
This is another argument by assertion. The text doesn't indicate in either case that Elisha thought that he had a duty to execute a commission that was given to Elijah, which the latter did not execute.

LJ:
Benhadad, the Syrian king, sent Hazael to consult the prophet Elisha about his illness, even though there is no evidence that he was a worshipper of Yahweh, because he had some faith and respect for the prophet's ability to foretell the future.

Till:
Well, actually, as I have shown in earlier postings, Benhadad (as the book of 2 Kings was written) had a very superstitious respect for Elisha. He attributed military reversals to a belief that Elisha was able to hear even what he was saying in privacy, and Benhadad sent an army to surround a town where he had learned that Elisha was staying. I would call this more than just "some faith and respect" that Hazael had for Elisha's ability.

Whether Benhadad's fear of Elisha is historical reality would be another question, but the story was written to indicate that the Syrian king feared Elisha.

LJ:
Hazael was no different. He would have taken the words "The Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria" as indicating that destiny had selected him to be the next king of Syria.

Till:
Well, LJ should understand that I agree with him on this point. I have proposed that this could easily have been the whole purpose of Elisha's trip to Syria. Understanding that the Syrians held him in high regard as a prophet, Elisha could easily have schemed to rid Israel of a nuisance king by putting into Hazael's head that destiny meant for him to be the king of Syria.

We are talking about ancient superstitions, however, and not actual realities of prophetic abilities. Planting in Hazael's mind the thought that a god intended him to be king could have caused him to assassinate Benhadad. After all, the assassination occurred the very next day after Elisha's meeting with Hazael. I thank LJ for taking a position that lends support to my explanation of why Elisha went to Syria.

LJ:
FT writes in Part 2, "The fact that Jehu acted immediately to leave Ramoth-gilead (where the anointing ceremony ocurred) and go to Jezreel to massacre the royal family has to be seen as evidence that, as this story was written, Jehu understood that he had received a mandate from Yahweh." Then by the same token, does the fact that Hazael murdered his master Benhadad on the day after conveying only the first part of Elisha's answer to the king mean that Hazael took Elisha's prophecy as a command, or, if not an explicit command, at least an expression of the divine will for the future with which he was now duty-bound to co-operate?

Till:
Yes, of course. Haven't I said so above? The superstitious Hazael could have well thought that it was the destiny of the gods for him to become king, and this superstitious belief could have led him to assassinate Benhadad. That, however, would not make this case even a remote parallel to the Jehu example. LJ could claim a parallel if Elisha had said to Hazael, "Yahweh has shown me that you will be king of Syria. You shall kill Benhadad so that Yahweh may avenge the blood of his people at the hand of Benhadad, and then you shall attack the children of Israel, kill all of their young men with the sword and rip open their women with child that I may avenge their unfaithfulness."

If this had been what Elisha had said to Hazael, then LJ could claim that this story was parallel to the following one where the young prophet anointed Jehu.

2 Kings 9:6 So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says the LORD the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of the LORD, over Israel. 7 You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD. 8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9 I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah.

Elisha, however, made no such statements to Hazael; therefore, LJ does not have his "true parallel." Furthermore, even if LJ could prove beyond all doubt that the young prophet merely spoke a prophecy--and not a command--after anointing Jehu, LJ would have to explain why Yahweh would have Hosea pronounce doom on the house of Jehu four generations later for Jehu's having done to the house of Ahab everything that Yahweh wanted and all that was in Yahweh's heart.

LJ;
It has been noted before that (with the exception of the verbs in the prediction concerning Jezebel, which are in the Imperfect) the Hebrew Perfect is used in the message to Jehu, which FT insists on taking as a command.

Till:
LJ had insisted that the tense use in Hebrew made this a prophetic statement. I simply showed that this was not the case, and LJ has yet to reply to the many examples I quoted where the imperfect was used in Hebrew to issue obvious commands. Since the imperfect was so frequently used in Hebrew to issue commands, that alone makes it possible for 2 Kings 9:7-10 to have been intended as commands. Add that to the context, which I have repeatedly analyzed, and the only sensible conclusion is that whoever inserted verses 7-10 (probably) as an editorial change to the original text gave the statement the import of a command.

If not, why not?

LJ:
In that context it is interesting to note that in this passage only one verb out of a total of seven verbs is Jehu the subject of the verb:

After the announcement "I have anointed thee for king unto the people of Yahweh...,"

1. "Thou hast smitten the house of Ahab thy Lord"--subject of the verb Jehu

2. "I have required the blood of My servants the prophets..."--subject God

3. "Perished hath all the house of Ahab"--subject "all the house of Ahab" in a clause in the passive voice

4. "I have cut off to Ahab those sitting on the wall..."--subject God

5. "I have given up the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam..."--subject God

6. "Jezebel do the dogs eat in the portion of Jezreel..."--subject "the dogs"

7. "There is none burying"--postponed subject in the English translation "none."

Till:
As previously explained (umpteen times by now), scholars, who are not the Grand Rapids, Michigan, kind, recognize multiple authorship in the books of Kings. As shown by my previous analysis of 2 Kings 9, the late editor who inserted verses 7-10 took Elijah's prophetic statement to Ahab (1 Kings 21:21ff) and wrote it into the Jehu scene. He retained much of the original wording, but in beginning the redaction with you shall, he gave the insertion the status of a command. That changed it from the prophecy that Elijah had spoken to Ahab to a command that an alleged emissary of Yahweh delivered to Jehu in order to have him execute the judgment of Yahweh.

LJ:
(I have quoted from "Young's Literal Translation.") In a message intended as a command, one would expect a higher proportion of the verbs to have Jehu as the subject, i.e. "Thou shall cause the house of Ahab to perish...," rather than "All the house of Ahab hath perished"; "Thou shall cut off to Ahab those sitting on the wall...," rather than "I have cut off to Ahab those sitting on the wall...," etc.

Till:
The intention of the redaction was to give readers the impression that Yahweh had anointed Jehu to be his instrument to bring upon the house of Ahab the punishment originally pronounced by Elijah. In making his adaptation of Elijah's statement, the editor began it with you shall and thereafter retained the essential wording of the original statement. Anyway, how many times would the young prophet have had to say "you shall" before LJ would admit that the editor(s) intended this redaction to carry the import of a command? Why do I suspect that if every clause had begun with "you shall," LJ would still be arguing that this was just a prophecy and not a command? Aside from that is the problem I have already mentioned several times: even if LJ could prove unequivocally that the young prophet actually made this statement and that he had intended it only as a prophecy, LJ would have to give a plausible explanation for why Yahweh would have had Hosea pronounce doom on the house of Jehu four generations later for Jehu's having done to the house of Ahab all that was in Yahweh's heart and exactly what Yahweh had wanted done.

LJ said at the beginning of this debate that he rejected the standard biblicist answer to this problem (Jehu had exceeded his mandate), but if he wants my opinion, the standard "explanation" is a more sensible one than his.

LJ:
It may also be pertinent to compare the case of Jehu, who destroyed the house of his Lord, with David, who refused to do any harm to Saul his master even though he had two opportunities to do so and all the reasons in the world for doing that. On the first ocassion [sic], after David had cut off the edge of Saul's robe, his conscience bothered him (1 Sam. 24:5-6). On the second ocassion [sic], when Abishai, a distinguished officer in David's army, requested permission from him to kill Saul, David, who ruthlessly hounded and destroyed the national enemies of Israel, answered, "Do not destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be without guilt?"(1 Sam. 26:8-9). He wanted to leave the matter in the hand of God (vs.10).

Till:
Has LJ never wondered what David would have done had he, prior to these opportunities, received a visit from Samuel or Nathan, who anointed David with oil and then said, "Thus says Yahweh, I anoint you king over my people Israel. You shall find Saul and kill him so that I may avenge his disobedience in sparing the life of the Amalekite king"? If this had happened and then David had refused to kill Yahweh, would LJ think that he had done according to all that was in Yahweh's heart concerning Saul? If in this scenario David had found Saul and killed him, would LJ think that it would have been just on Yahweh's part to order the extermination of the the house of David four generations later because of David's killing of Saul?

I'm sorry, but LJ just doesn't have the parallels that he is desperately looking for, and even if he could find one, he would have to explain why Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu four generations later because Jehu had done to the house of Ahab exactly what Yahweh had wanted done.

LJ:
I said above that showing that 2 Kg. 9:6ff is only a prophecy is only one part of my solution. FT says in Part Two, "he [LJ] cannot claim a solution until he has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the 'son of the prophet' had merely made a prophetic statement to Jehu." That is not at all necessary. All I have to do is to show that the interpretation of the message to Jehu as merely a prophecy is at least a possibility. Who is to be the judge of what is "reasonable doubt" in this debate anyway?

Till:
Ah, so, LJ, who seemed to take offense at having been called an inerrantist, has had to resort to the same familiar argument that we hear so often from inerrantists who say, "As long as I can show a possible explanation for an alleged discrepancy, I have proven that no discrepancy exists." I just don't have the patience to take everyone through a lengthy rebuttal of this asinine reasoning, but if LJ returns to this as a serious attempt to make his case, I'll go into the errancy archives to find a rebuttal that I can cut and paste.

If LJ wants to open the issue of "possibilities," I'll be glad to play his little game. I have shown, for example, that it isn't just possible but very probable that the disputed statement wasn't even in the original text. Is LJ going to stick to his standard (stated above) on this "possibility" (probability) and say, "Who is to be the judge of what is 'reasonable doubt' in this debate anyway?"

We should clear up this matter before we proceed further. Which of the statements below, if any, would LJ consider true statements?

1. If LJ can show that the young prophet's statement was possibly just a prophecy, then he has proven that there is no inconsistency in 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4.

2. If Till can show that the young prophet's statement was possibly a command issued to Jehu, then he has proven that there IS an inconsistency in 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4.

3. What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.

I will now address what LJ called my "unrelated issues" in the final part of his last posting.LJ:

Unrelated Issues/Objections in FT's Reply.

Till:
After sending a 35K tangent into a discussion of why he is not a biblical inerrantist, LJ has the temerity to talk about FT's "unrelated issues"?

LJ:


1. In Part 1 of his reply, FT says that, on the interpretation of 2 Kg. 9:6ff as a prophecy, we have a situation in which "Yahweh selected a man to be king who immediately went and committed atrocities that Yahweh didn't approve of. If that were the case, then why did Yahweh choose such a king?" Then he adds, "That's a problem that LJ will have to explain."

This objection, which he raises in two other places in his replies, exposes FT's ignorance of one of the most basic points of the theology of the Bible.

Till:
Well, quite frankly, who gives a damn about "basic points of the theology of the Bible"? The "theology of the Bible" requires belief in such absurdities as the virgin birth, the resurrection, and various other miracles too numerous to list. The "theology of the Bible" requires one to believe that the god Yahweh is loving and merciful but also a god that would order the utter destruction of seven nations so that his "chosen people" could occupy certain pieces of real estate, as if there were no sparsely populated places on earth where this god could have led his people. The "theology of the Bible" requires one to believe that Yahweh, a loving and merciful god, ordered the utter destruction of the entire Amalekite nation, including children and infants, because of something their ancestors had done 450 years earlier.

In a word, the "theology of the Bible" is too absurd for rational people to believe. I'll leave it to LJ to guess where that puts him.

LJ:
The Scriptures plainly declare that rulers, both good and bad, de jure and de facto, are from God. I quoted earlier Rom. 13:1, according to which "...there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." "The powers that be" at that time were the Romans.

Till:
I have already addressed this and pointed out that LJ, who took us into a 35K tangent to explain why he rejects the biblical inerrancy doctrine, nevertheless wants everyone to accept as inerrant truth whatever passages he finds that seem to support his position.

I'll just ask LJ to prove to us that rulers "both good and bad" are from God. Are we to believe this because the Bible tells us so? If so, what assurances can LJ give us that this doctrine, surrounded by various scriptures that LJ does not believe are inerrant, is a true statement?

I hope that others in these internet forums who have taken the position that the Bible is errant but is nevertheless "the word of God" are taking note of the predicament that LJ has gotten himself into by proclaiming from the rooftops that he is not a biblical inerrantist. That proclamation put him into the position of being unable to quote any biblical passage without bringing upon himself the burden of having to prove that what he is quoting is truth hidden among clusters of falsity.

LJ:
Nebuchadnezzar had to learn through a humiliating experience that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men" (Dan. 4:17). The "basest of men" in this instance was none other than Nebuchadnezzar himself!

Till:
Yes, the Bible does say this, doesn't it? LJ probably remembers that I referred to this little yarn myself. Now I would like for him to prove to us that this incident ever happened and that if it did, Daniel's claim that the "Most High" rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he chooses is a true statement.

How can we know that it is? After all, the Bible isn't inerrant, and LJ has gone to great lengths to explain to us that he doesn't believe it is.

LJ:
God told the Pharoah of the exodus, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth" (Rom.9:17; Ex. 9:16).

Till:
I'll present the same challenge to LJ. Let him prove to us that this is a true, inerrant statement.

Does LJ think that I am going to stand by and let him deny the doctrine of inerrancy and then arbitrarily pick and choose the passages that he wants to be considered authoritative? If so, he is in for a big surprise. Having taken an errantist position, he is now going to find me demanding that he prove the truth of all biblical passages that he cites as proof of his position.

LJ:
I could give many more examples from Scripture.

Till:
And if you did, you would bring upon yourself the responsibility of having to prove that these examples in a book that you yourself claim is inerrant are true statements.

As I said, LJ made his bed. Now he must lie in it.

LJ:
The Pharoah, Saul, David, Benhadad, Hazael, Jehu, Nebuchadnezzar, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Abraham Lincoln, Clinton, Bush, etc. etc. are all from God.

Till:
This is a flagrant resort to argumentation by assertion. I defy LJ to prove that any one of these rulers was appointed to his position by God.

I will have to agree, however, that George W. Bush sounds about like the kind of ruler that the biblical Yahweh would choose.

LJ:
The issue raised by FT relates to the wider issue of divine sovereignty versus human freewill, which is not relevant to the current debate. I can write something on this subject but then it will be a digression which FT seems so averse to!

Till:
As if anyone would care what passages a biblical inerrantist would arbitrarily declare true and accurate on the subject of divine sovereignty. I would much rather that LJ spend his time trying to reply to my rebuttal arguments. So far he has done very little of that.

LJ

2. FT cannot contain his rationalistic bias against biblical prophecy and every now and then objects to my use of the word "prophecy" in referring to passages which are prophetical in nature.

Till:
He who asserts must prove, so the burden of proving prophecy falls on him who claims the prophecy. As I recall the matter, my objection to LJ's use of the word "prophecy" has been in contexts in which he simply wanted to assume that the passage in dispute was a prophecy. That's an assertion that he must prove.

LJ:
As a believer in the authenticity of biblical prophecy, I am perfectly entitled to use that word without qualifying it with some such words as "as this story was written," as FT wants me to do. FT, on the other hand, is perfectly entitled to use such a qualification if he does not believe that the prophecies of the Bible are authentic. Because the authenticity or otherwise of biblical prophecies is not the topic of this debate and it is hoped that FT can bear that in mind.

Till:
The authenticity of biblical prophecies is not the topic of this debate? Why isn't it? LJ claims that the young prophet's statement beyond what Elisha had told him to say was a prophecy, so that is a claim that LJ must prove. In other words, he must prove that the intention of this statement was merely prophetic. If he can't establish that, then he has not made his case. Wouldn't that involve authenticity?

Furthermore, I have shown that there are good reasons for suspecting that the statement in question was the redaction of a later editor. If it is, then authenticity is very much an issue.

Still furthermore, after LJ establishes that this was a statement that was only prophetic in intent, he will have to explain why Yahweh would have told Jehu that he had done everything that was in Yahweh's heart in the matter of the house of Ahab but would "inspire" a prophet four generations later to pronounce doom on Jehu's entire lineage for Jehu's having done that which was right in the matter of Ahab's house?

In other words, LJ has his work cut out for him. I wonder when he is going to get down to the task before him.

LJ:
I will hereafter follow the above procedure of collecting any issues raised by FT which I consider irrelevant under a single heading separately as above and comment on them. The reason for that is I don't want readers to be misled into thinking that such issues are on a par with other relevant material by dealing with them in the main body of the defense.

Till:
Is LJ now setting himself up as the judge of that which is and is not relevant in this debate? In the posting I am now answering, LJ asked, "Who is to be the judge of what is 'reasonable doubt' in this debate anyway?"

From what LJ has said immediately above, I guess we know the answer to my question. Apparently, LJ is to be the judge of what is and what is not relevant in this debate?

LJ;
I will now allow FT to reply to the foregoing, if he so wishes, before I formally present Part 2 of my solution next time, which concerns the reconciliation of 2 Kg. 10:30 with Hos. 1:4, which in fact is the alleged contradiction under debate, 2 Kg. 9:6ff being interpreted as a prophecy being only a sine qua non for my solution, not the solution itself. If, however, FT still does not concede that 2 Kg. 9:6ff is only a prophecy, not a command, or at least concede that the interpretation of that passage as only a prophecy is a possibility, I will still draw a line at that point and proceed to Point 2 of the solution.

Till:
In other words, LJ is going to ignore all of my rebuttal arguments that he has not yet replied to (or even attempted to reply) and proceed on his merry way as if I have put no obstacles in his path. I guess we should expect that from someone who seems to think that he should be considered the authority on which passages in the Bible are true and which are untrue and what passages in dispute mean or don't mean.

I want LJ to know that I have posted rebuttal arguments that he has not yet replied to, so if he tries to ignore them and proceed full steam ahead, I am going to send back a posting that lists rebuttal arguments that he will have to address before I continue to follow him down the evasive path that he is taking.

A debater is supposed to reply to his opponent's arguments, LJ, so I will expect you to meet that obligation. You were the one who contacted me and proposed this debate. Now I expect you to live up to what you committed yourself to do.

[Editor's Note: No further replies came from LJ. Several months later, he sent me a message saying that he had found another "solution" to the Jehu problem that he would like to debate. I declined, because I could see that he was using a familiar inerrantist tactic, i. e., to debate one position and then switch to another after he was unable to defend his first one. If we had started a debate on his "new" solution, he would probably have abandoned that one and proposed still a third one.

I am posting these exchanges with the ones between Robert Turkel and me so that readers can see biblical inerrantists can't agree among themselves on what "solutions" to biblical discrepancies are the correct ones.]